Tuesday, 7 June 2016

Scrapping of post-UTME: Varsities to screen candidates on oral, essay before admission:

Former Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission, NUC, Professor
Peter Okebukola, has said that Nigerian universities deviated from the initial
agreement NUC had with Vice-Chancellors in 2004 when it introduced post-UTME to
screen candidates on oral interview and written essay.
He also said out the present position as revealed to him by the
Vice-Chancellors, after their meeting with Malam Adamu Adamu last Thursday, was
that the Minister had directed that universities should no longer conduct the
same type of test as JAMB, but should be free to further subject candidates to
screening to meet their local peculiarities. Okebukola, who spoke exclusively
with Vanguard, lamented that universities had since deviated from the initial
agreement of post-UTME disclosed that the 2004 model had a screening component
which was agreed with all vice-chancellors to be through oral interview and
essay which JAMB assessment did not cover. The former NUC Scribe expressed joy
in the scrapping of post-UTME, adding that it now took the universities system
back to the original model of post-UME which NUC initiated in 2004 while he
served as Executive Secretary. While expatiating on reasons for the
introduction of post-UTME in 2014, he explained that the NUC and the
vice-chancellors discovered that more than ever before, they needed to admit
into the universities, secondary school leavers, from the large pool, including
those who have at least two characteristics. The first characteristic, he
noted, was to ensure that admission seekers attained minimum cognitive
competence in the relevant subjects in the discipline they wished to study; and
second to test their competence in written and oral English, critical thinking
and ability to present ideas in logical sequence befitting of undergraduates in
Africa’s most-expansive and well-regarded university system. ‘’JAMB’s UTME
targets only the first characteristic; while the university-level screening
should measure the second,’’ he said.